


Guilt

by Falke



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Angst, Bondage, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, Nudity, Post-Canon, Slice of Life, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-29 02:53:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6356029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Falke/pseuds/Falke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The memory played as if on tape: when Nick had cornered her against the wall in the museum and held his jaws to her throat, close enough to feel her pulse and smell her fear and the copper tang of the blood on her leg. They had been distracted and scared, concentrating on maintaining an illusion. But there had still been some reflexive part of him under the veneer of civility that wondered and lusted after that sensation, and for that Nick always had to chase the fear and doubt in his own head away from their quiet moments together.</p>
<p>This wasn't supposed to hurt her, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This work is set post-canon. It includes nudity, implied sex, light bondage, some superconcentrated fluff at the end and minor spoilers from the movie.
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> (And thank you all for your comments! It makes me so happy to know someone else is enjoying this as much as I am.)

Morgiano's was an anomaly.

For all the grand homogeneity of Zootopia, there were certain aspects of the culture that still mostly adhered to the old divides: preferred living environments; pastimes and jobs; scale. Even here, scale was inescapable. The best pasta in the city was in Little Rodentia, and the vast majority had never sampled it because the portions were all rodent-sized.

Not at Morgiano's. The enterprising rat had taken his family craft supersize. He'd opened a corner restaurant right in the downtown plaza to offer the rest of the city a taste of Little Rodentia's secrets, and had sold out every table for dinner pretty much since day one.

And it was sitting room only again tonight. Nick looked over the multiple tiers of the open-air patio and saw the whole range of animals. Giraffes and hippos, lions, tigers, foxes, wolves, and all the way down to otters, minks, and mice - mice! - committing the great crime of venturing out of Little Rodentia's own hallowed pasta halls.

They took it seriously, those rodents: so much so that Morgiano had endured a string of attempts to shut him down, each more blatant and underhanded than the last. Nick was no stranger to Zootopia's criminal underground, but not even he had grasped just how deep the families had their claws into certain aspects of the city. Spaghetti was apparently sacrosanct, and Morgiano's act of defiance had put him on the wrong lists.

The old Nick would have laughed at the strange bloodlust and looked the other way, but the new Nick was a police officer and thus bound to uphold the law. He and the rest of the department had worked with Morgiano to shut down the pressure, from the phony health inspectors all the way down to the actual tunnels someone had dug under the restaurant and filled with barrels of old cooking oil. Precinct 1's night crew had made a string of arrests and stopped any arson before it started, and in thanks Louis Morgiano reserved the police a table for two every night.

Tonight was their turn. Nick smiled across the table at his companion. Judy was ignoring her salad to stare around with the same fascination all the first-timers had at Morgiano's.

"And it's all one rat?"

"Him and his staff, at least." Nick said. "I hear he's got a whole scaffold system set up in back so the rodents can supervise the larger pots and things."

"Just like the different tables out here." Judy nodded. "You see seats for big and small all over, but this is the first place I've been that puts them all at the same eye level."

"Food is and should be the great equalizer," came a voice beside their table.

"Stephane." Nick smiled at the little otter.

"Good to see you again, Nick." Stephane was the maitre d', and a vaguely familiar face from Nick's past life. Morgiano wasn't the only one here who had decided to break from the families.

"And milady." Stephane made a little bow to Judy. "Miss Hopps, is it? Welcome to Morgiano's."

"Oh, please. Judy." Her ears wavered in embarrassment.

Stephane's eyes twinkled. "The special for you both?"

"Please," Nick said. Morgiano's didn't make much else, and it didn't need to. "I hear the spaghetti's to die for."

"Indeed," Stephane laughed. "Not literally these days, thanks to your department's efforts. Would you like tofu balls? Soy? We lured a panther from the culinary college last month. She's a downright artist."

"Tofu's fine," Nick said. "Maybe just the one."

"Certainly. And can I bring either of you any more to drink?"

"Just water for me, please," Judy said.

"Can you recommend a red?" Nick asked. "A glass of whatever you think will match."

"I'll see to it." Stephane nodded and vanished, leaving Judy staring in amusement after him.

"I take it you know him?"

"Once upon a time." Nick leaned back, smiling at her curiosity. "Before you straightened me out."

"Really." She had a way of focusing on him that always took him off guard. "I smell a war story, if it's nothing that will get you or me in trouble."

"No, it's harmless." Nick waved his water. "In his own past life, Stephane was a fixer for Big. Everything that happened on the rainforest waterfront went through him. Before that, word is, he was a Peacekeepers Navy diver. Special forces, very hush-hush."

"Huh." Judy glanced off where the otter had vanished into the kitchen on the back wall. "So what's he doing serving spaghetti?"

"A nice honest job, I guess." He shrugged. "Like me. Remember, Morgiano was tied up in the families, too, and not in a pretty way. He's big on giving people a new life if they want it."

The wine was excellent, and headier than Nick had expected. He sipped it with dinner, which looked to be more than he was going to be able to finish. Judy tried with her portion anyway, slurping noodles with gusto.

As they ate, twilight fell, and most of the illumination shifted from the sun to the crescent moon above them, the city lights and the candles at the center of each table. Nick watched Judy take it in with the air of someone who still wasn't quite used to city life. The candlelight was reflecting in her eyes.

"It's beautiful."

Nick dipped his muzzle to his glass so she wouldn't catch him looking. "Sure is."

She frowned at him anyway, in that way she always did when she had to pretend to be angry with him. He offered her a drink and eventually she took the glass.

Where their relationship had come from, Nick still couldn't pinpoint. It had probably started in those first fateful days when she'd dragged him through saving the world, and months of partnership on the beat had only strengthened it. They were good teammates, good friends.

And as far as Nick knew, they were the only ones on the force who looked to each other for support. Most of the others hadn't caught on to that yet, and it was for the best. Interspecies relationships were a rarity, and predator-prey pairings sometimes felt almost taboo, even these days. It didn't matter who you were.

They'd been lucky so far, and careful. They enjoyed a lot of goodwill coming off the prey supremacy incident, and the cameras they wore every day and the civil oversight board from city council breathing down their necks made sure they never slipped up in public.

But in private-

Nick snuck another glance. Her eyes were closed as she enjoyed the drink. In private, it was different, and close, and exciting. As intoxicating as any wine, and dangerous for entirely different reasons. Close as they might get, he was still a predator and she was still prey. He could trust and value and even love her - and oh, how he loved her right now - but to act on it carried such a risk.

"You're thinking again." Judy snapped him back to the here and now, where she was looking right back. Her nose twitched as she smiled. "I can smell the smoke from here."

"You give me too much credit," he cracked. He held her gaze, feeling reckless. "You have to have more than one brain cell for friction. Want to pack this up and go for a walk?"

"Sure. Is it you, or me?"

"Me." Nick said. "You got the sandwiches last time." Subs were nowhere near as pricey as a night at Morgiano's, but he didn't care. He went for his wallet.

"Don't you dare, Wilde."

They both jumped. Stephane placed two fancy takeout boxes on the table with the eerie timing only a maitre d' could pull off.

"Sorry?"

"Unacceptable." The otter gave a roguish smile. "We won't have a ZPD officer paying for a meal here. Or for coffee."

Two espressos materialized, complete with matching saucers.

"You're the boss," Nick said, smiling at Judy's bafflement. He shook Stephane's paw. "Our compliments to Morgiano and the rest of the crew. It was excellent."

\---

"Nick, did you set this up?"

They made their way down the waterfront, Nick with boxes in arm and Judy right alongside. The summer steam boats passed by going the other way, spilling light and noise out onto the water. They were popular now that it was getting warm in the evenings.

"How would I rig that one?" He asked. "Clawhauser drew our names from the pool."

"I don't know, but you did something." She really was distressed. Her feet thumped along the boardwalk. "You promised me back when you signed up you'd never use a contact for personal gain."

Oh. Nick barked a short laugh. "Oh, sweetheart, that's not my doing. I was way too smalltime to ever swing a free meal at one of the good pasta places. Thank ZPD for that one."

Judy blinked. "We weren't on the ground for the tunnel case. I didn't know it was a running thing."

He shrugged at her. "And I was ready to pay. We're both surprised." He hefted the boxes. "And we have lunch for tomorrow."

"Oh," she said. "That's okay, then. Sorry."

"No worries." He lowered his voice. Even this time of night, one couldn't be too careful. "You're downright adorable when you're flustered, you know."

Her ears snapped right back up. "And you ate too much, fox."

"Maybe." Nick stopped at the end of the sidestreet and tilted his head at the familiar door to his apartment block. "Good thing I have a refrigerator upstairs for the rest of this."

\---

Nick kept his apartment dim and plain, almost spartan. Years of flaky leases and working out on the streets had cured him of any real desire to accumulate things. He had four good walls - okay, and a nice bed that he'd splurged on with his ZPD signing bonus - and that was plenty.

His one concession was music. He'd saved up for a nice little stereo a couple months ago, to fill the room with something in the few hours he spent here every day. He stowed the take-out boxes in his tiny fridge and went to pick some music out.

He had to admit, he couldn't have done this better even if he had schemed it up himself. Perfect dinner, a long overnight together ahead of their weekend; his special package had even arrived a couple days ago. He'd tucked the little box out of sight under the futon by the window, for when the time seemed right.

Judy was brushing her teeth with a toothbrush from the overnight bag she kept in Nick's closet, standing on tiptoe in the square of light from the bathroom doorway so she could see the mirror. He needed to get her a crate or something. She spent enough time here.

She'd changed from duty blues to something more comfortable already, a loose green buttoned shirt a couple sizes too big and a pair of shorts so black they seemed to swallow the light. Nick watched her tail twitch and sent private thanks to whoever had thought up Lululemming.

The stereo beeped for attention and he ducked to it. It wouldn't do to get ahead of himself, even if the night had gone off without a hitch so far. This had to be her decision.

"Aren't you going to change?" Judy asked. She padded up beside him and perked her ears at the light fusion-y sounds coming from the speakers.

"Yeah, I'll find something." He smirked at her expression. "What?"

"A bit cliche, don't you think?"

"Hey, if you want to rag on Snarky Kitty the door is right there." He waved toward the front of the room.

"I'll take your word for it. I can barely see anything in this dark box you call an apartment."

"I have something like double your square feet," he leaned forward so they would be eye to eye. "And at least the neighbors here keep their argument sex down."

She almost went for the kiss. He could see her nose twitching. "I'll be on the couch."

He hung his own uniform next to his spare and pulled on a pair of beaten pants. Did he want a shirt? No, there were good odds it would be gone soon anyway.

Still, he paused in the doorway before he switched off the light, the way he did every time.


	2. Chapter 2

The city lights did a good job of giving the futon just enough light for them to see each other by, and as Nick came around the end of the couch he stopped to smile at Judy taking in the nightscape.

"You seem to be missing something," she said as he slid alongside her.

"Just being expedient," he murmured. This time he did succumb and planted a light kiss at the base of her left ear. She shivered.

The window was her favorite feature of his apartment. From the edge of the block, his fourth-floor perch showed off a decent swath of the city, from the trains that cruised by on their way to and from central station to the misty cliffs that marked the start of the rainforest district to the west.

There was a rolled-up shade along the ceiling that covered the whole thing, but the nice bit of keeping the apartment dark was they wouldn't show up sitting here to anyone looking in. There was even a one-way privacy coating to foil night vision, like a less severe version of the ones they had on the interview mirrors downtown.

And that was the only reason this worked, of course. If anyone saw them like this it could lead to trouble, reasonable expectations of privacy be damned. If Nick had learned one thing during his time with ZPD, it was the prejudice between predators and prey was an automatic thing with some mammals. And he and Judy were just working partners in those instances. Some of the characters they'd met would probably call the police if they knew what was going on here, and that would get awkward extremely quickly.

Judy never did care. She had leaned into his attentions, letting him squeeze her shoulders and run his muzzle up and down her ears. He loved her like this, when she turned part liquid and made happy little noises when he chased tension out of her back.

But he was never not aware of her. Her rabbit nature never left his mind. Every time they were together like this it taunted him, excited him on a completely feral level that predators were never supposed to acknowledge.

The memory played as if on tape: when Nick had cornered her against the wall in the museum and held his jaws to her throat, close enough to feel her pulse and smell her fear and the copper tang of the blood on her leg. They had been distracted and scared, concentrating on maintaining an illusion. But there had still been some reflexive part of him under the veneer of civility that wondered and lusted after that sensation, and for that Nick always had to chase the fear and doubt in his own head away from their quiet moments together.

Judy shifted against him, bringing him back, filling his head again with her scent.

"My turn," she said, and stood astride his knees so they were at eye level. She reached for his neck.

"Thanks for dinner," she said as she worked.

"You're making me wish I had more to do with it," Nick said. She was pressing herself against him. That was new. Of course, he was helping her along with paws in the small of her back. "Next time we go, we'll go in street clothes so I can buy it for you properly."

She smiled at him. "Won't Stephane see you?"

"Maybe. If he refuses again I'll just tip him really well. Same thing, basically."

Judy closed the rest of the distance and kissed him, hard enough to steal his breath.

"Love you too, Carrots."

She arched her neck to rest her forehead against his. "You remember what we did the last time we had a real weekend like this?"

His smile was likely answer enough. Nick was never going to forget that weekend. They might not have consummated their relationship yet, but they certainly got close sometimes.

Their differences were apparent then, too, and they'd been careful to take it slow and just watch each other. She'd shown him her own housewarming gift to herself. Foxes being constantly amorous might have been a running cultural joke, but for rabbits it was a biological imperative, and the basis of an entire industry.

It was kind of intimidating, lepine marital engineering. Her toy was smarter than the average computer, with induction oscillators she said even she couldn't hear, adjustable weight and heat settings, and a knob that was actually labeled eleven.

Nick had his paws, and to be fair they'd never left him wanting. And he had certain species quirks that Judy's model didn't build in. She'd been just as fascinated.

But they'd never been together. Was it time to change that?

He couldn't be the one to press forward here. The constant awareness and guilt saw to that. He had to leave it up to Judy.

Still, there was less harm in enjoying the situation as it developed, he told himself, even if Judy was only encouraging him. He'd shifted his paws to her hips and she'd raised her chin to bare her neck. Did she know what that did to him?

Her fingers dug into his trapezius, and stroked his ears, and skimmed through the ruff of fur on his chest. Now he was the one reduced to a puddle. When he met her eyes he could see something had clicked. There was truth to that old cliche, then.

"Right here," she murmured.

His eyes flicked to the window as she stepped away, but he wasn't going to stop her. If he thought too hard about this now he'd manage to wreck the moment. He just hoped that coating was all it was cracked up to be.

Nick looked out over the city, granting her an unnecessary privacy. He could still hear the hiss of clothing just fine, of course, and caught the shift in her scent, but he took it as a test and willed himself to keep still.

He nearly lost that fight anyway when she flowed back onto his lap. Her kiss was as passionate and driven as any predator's. It pushed his own heart faster, and this time he relaxed into it. His paw slipped under the shirt she'd left draped open over her shoulders.

She twisted under the new contact, prey in his claws that made no move to escape. There was the whisper of a growl in his chest now. Normally he'd keep that sort of thing to himself, but tonight all it did was set Judy's eyes brighter. Yes, she knew what she did to him. He did the same thing to her.

And so the shard of guilt flared between his ribs. He stilled her with a kiss. "Last chance to back out. Are you sure you want to go through with this?"

"I love you, fox. Let me show you."

That was that, then. Nick left off her hips long enough to reach under the futon.

The box was unmarked grey. Judy squinted at it, and looked at him, eyes like two galaxies. "Nick-"

"No," he laughed to mask how much that face tugged at him. "Relax, Carrots. One step at a time."

It sat in a custom foam cutout, with a space beneath for the straps. He picked it up so she could see.

The matte copper ring was about three inches across. It matched to a set of hefty brown leather straps, like someone had forgotten to complete a oversize wristwatch. It didn't look anything like the steel or tough plastic restraints they used on duty, so Judy didn't get it until he held it in front of his nose.

"No." She recoiled. "No, Nick, you can't."

"I kind of have to, sweetheart." Oh, that look on her face hurt. He'd half-expected she might not like this part, but the revulsion in her eyes was sharp. "You know how risky this is."

"You would never. I know you."

"We've never done this before," Nick countered. "You know I love you, but not even I know what's going to happen. Do you trust me that much?"

"I trust you with my life, Nick." Judy's voice cracked. She pushed the muzzle down out of the way so she could get close to him again. "I know I'm safe with you."

A year ago, she'd nearly pulled fox spray on him. A lot had changed since then. They'd grown so much closer, so much more comfortable. They were the exception to the world outside, even when they couldn't show it, but the only way they had made it this far was thanks to trust in each other.

Judy meant every word, and Nick knew it. He was the problem. Somewhere deep down, he still didn't trust himself with her life.

He hoped that despair didn't show on his face.

"We've never tested ourselves like this, Judy," he repeated. "It's dangerous. Irresponsible."

"We're already dangerous and irresponsible. I already live with that." She held him by the ruffs on his cheeks so he had to look at her. "We were fine last time, in my apartment. How is this any different?"

"You're rationalizing, Carrots. This is a whole new level."

"So what? I'm making a commitment here, too. You should never have to degrade yourself to love someone else."

"And I won't let you risk your life on my account," Nick said. It was as close as he could bring himself to that jagged truth. He lifted a paw to her own cheek, feeling wretched as she turned away. This wasn't supposed to guilt her, too. "That's the thing that sets us apart. We can't erase that, no matter how close we get."

"Tell me you don't believe that." She whirled on him so fast her ears swung behind her. Her eyes were brimming with tears. "Would you wear that if you didn't think you had to? I thought that was something you decided to leave behind."

For a moment he saw it her way. He looked down at the tool between them. It was regression, in her mind. A step backward. The memory of Nick's last experience with a muzzle ambushed him. He felt the bite of the cold steel and pressure of straps cranked too tight, and shook his head.

"I did leave that behind." he picked the ring up and held it over his nose again. Judy flinched. "This represents love, not hate. That's the difference."

"A muzzle is a muzzle, Nick."

"No." He let it drop again and the buckle clinked. Her ears twitched and he pulled her close to him again. "Last time I wore one of these, it marked me as different and dangerous. This time it will let me share something new with you that I've never tried with anyone before. It will keep us both safe."

Her shiver was different now that Nick had shattered the moment, absent the promise it had held before. Now she was hesitant and scared. Nick was careful to keep his claws clear of her fur.

"It's not fair to you," she whispered into his neck. "You're my fox. I don't want you to change because of me, not this time."

This was his penance for wanting to be with her, Nick knew, to watch her hold him up under his own guilt like it was her fault. "You say that, and I love you so much it hurts, Carrots."

He cradled her and she wept with the love and shame and cosmic unfairness of it all. Nick had no concept of the passage of time, no measure for how long Judy stayed there under his chin beyond the slow shift of the lights out the window.

In the coming days, when times were at their worst and at their best, he would relive this moment and wonder. It was strange, how quickly something so tense and morose could cement itself as one of his fondest memories. She had provided the counter to his past, in a way: the long-awaited confirmation that what he was didn't have to define him.

"I won't give up on you," Judy said at last, as if to reinforce his own thoughts.

Nick's own throat was tight. "You always were stubborn."

"I mean it." Judy sniffed. "I love you too, you know. If this is how it has to be tonight, fine. But it won't stay this way forever."

He held his tongue, because whatever he said next stood an equal chance of torpedoing whatever recovery Judy had made. He let her push him onto his back, where she crouched over him on all fours, half naked, her ears brushing his forehead, a predator in her own right. He felt dexterous paws pushing at his waist and reached down to help her.

The pain in her expression flickered again when he brought up the muzzle; intensified as he made to put it on. She took his paws and held him still.

"Judy-"

"Shut up, fox." She took the straps from him and guided them into place with infinite care. The ring came halfway up his muzzle. it was cold, but comfortable enough otherwise. She fastened the buckle behind his ears and kept her paws there, watching his face.

Nick had maybe a quarter inch of clearance, but he made a point of not testing it where she'd be able to see. He settled for a laconic smile instead, to keep the guilt at bay the way he had for the last twenty years.

It wasn't enough to fool Judy anymore, and her tears fell on his cheek. But she kissed him so fiercely Nick swore they turned to steam.

"I know who you are," she said.

\---

Afterward, they both crammed into Nick's little shower. They didn't say much, just washed up because that was what was done. Nick found his shorts and Judy found her shirt, and instead of sleeping on one piece of furniture each they climbed into Nick's bed together. Judy gave an exploratory squirm.

"You weren't kidding, this is nice."

"I think I like it better with company, actually."

She poked him. "You are a hopeless, cliched romantic."

"And?"

"I wouldn't want you any other way." She wiggled around so they were nose to nose and smiled in apology. "I never can sit still afterward. I'm sorry."

"I don't know, this is fine." He kissed her forehead. She stroked his unobstructed muzzle. "I'm not all that tired either."

"Tomorrow morning, maybe?"

"You rabbit."

She shrugged against him. "It feels good. Right. I'd worried I was going to make a huge deal of the first time, but I think we did okay."

Nick kissed her again so he wouldn't say anything stupid.

"And there will be the other first time," she said, and nosed him so he'd know she wasn't hung up on it. "And the first time after that."

It took him a minute. She laughed at his face.

"You want to talk about biological incompatibility, Carrots-"

"I know, I know. Little steps."

"You're right, though. We'll make them special."

She pressed herself close under the blankets in gratitude. Nick wrapped her in his arms, curling around her as big spoon.

He waited for the whisper of fear for her safety and the implications of their closeness in the back of his head, but it never came. The guilt was still. Not gone, probably, but manageable now.

Judy had taken some of it on herself, even if she didn't know it, and for that Nick owed her a debt he would probably repay for the rest of his life.

He would do it happily, he realized as she nestled more closely against his chest. Even if he never found it in himself to tell her, he could give her the love she deserved, and that was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr](https://falke-scribblings.tumblr.com/)
> 
>  
> 
> [chronology](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yPmpmdo39SmiRNC4BJVv2PAWi7fxBoP5FWba9n8s3qg/edit?usp=sharing)


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